Microsoft Will Turn Any Surface Into A Touchscreen

Microsoft has introduced an innovative technology which allows to make multi-touch screen from virtually any surface.

The technology, called OmniTouch, developed by Microsoft, is based on the combined use of pico-projector and a special camera. The principle of this operation is like this: the projector projects the image onto the surface – it can be wall, fabric, furniture, hand or other body part – after which the camera detects the position of the fingers relative to the projected image and recognizes control gestures.

The team of engineers conducts a demonstration of technology in action, using a hardware project OmniTouch pico projector Microvision ShowWX + and camcorder PrimeSense. As for the software part, the experts do not hurry to disclose their algorithms. So far there are known only marginal possibilities of technology at the moment – OmniTouch can scan the surface size of 320×240 at 30 frames per second.

There are still many limitations associated with a defined distance from the camera object. The minimum distance is 5 mm, maximum – 200 mm. However, developers were able to demonstrate a fully functional prototype system, which has a great future.